Book Review – Surviving in America

About the BookNearly a million people immigrate to America, legally or illegally, each year. The influx of people from all over the world has proven at times to be America’s greatest strength and at times it’s most difficult challenge. There is no question; however, that America is defined by its infinitely varied population.

Follow two Jamaican boys on their journey to the United States in Surviving in America. Amin and Ragweed begin on similar paths: both are poor and fatherless, raised in a tiny village in Jamaica. Both long to immigrate to America. Their lives, though they become divergent, continue to intersect as they make their way in the states. Amin becomes the epitome of the hardworking immigrant hoping to make a good life for himself, while Ragweed represents the harm that can befall a young man in America or anywhere: carelessly siring children, selling drugs and slipping into violence and imprisonment.

A book greater than the stories of these two men’s lives, Surviving in America explores Jamaican and American culture, nature and nurture, and the hopes, dreams and failures that plague us all.

About the AuthorCurtis Webley emigrated from Jamaica to the United States in 1975. He received a B.S. in Accounting from Roosevelt University (1981), his C.P.A. in Illinois (1992) and his M.S. in Taxation from the Washington School of Law (1995). Currently, Webley is a freelance writer, an adjunct professor of accounting and income taxes at colleges throughout Chicago, Controller of Spiral of Illinois, Inc., and owner/operator of Webley’s Accounting Services in Evanston, Illinois since 1981. He is married and has five children.